18.11.08

Good afternoon.My brother's mother-in-law is Italian and we clash, politically. Of Mussolini, she is of the persuasion that his ability to have the trains running on time begs forgiveness of other oversights like human rights and support for Hitler. Like Hitler, Mussolini was hot on paper work - as was Stalin. If nothing else, you can say of the Soviet Union, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, ' they ran a neat bureaucracy'. If only Stalin had realised Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was about giving them what they needed rather than telling them what to do, and shooting them for failure. How history might have been different.

If you have seen the paperwork on Baby P, which Haringey Council et al so painstakingly compiled, you might think the same - if only someone, anyone, had read it all in one sitting they might have thought "something's amiss here" and how the history of Baby P might have been different. But no, they didn't and he is dead, his ashes scattered in East Finchley Cemetery. Harris has been looking at the paperwork and the Cemetery where he says the tributes to Baby P have now reached "mountainous" proportions. A characteristically sharp yet sensitive piece in promise, methinks. LVJ is on his way to Haringey where a Cabinet meeting is scheduled. (I still find that pretentious as a piece of political jargon.) He will try and eavesdrop but I suspect the very foundations of the council chamber will echo to an embarrassed silence, but we'll see.

Much talk of worms and viruses at the Royal London in Whitechapel, Barts Hospital and the London Chest Hospital. Faulty hygiene? Brown, slivering things chomping on soil and surviving being cut in half? Tiny microbes that cause infection and illness? No, this is about cyber-space not grubby wards and muddy operating theatres. They have been victims to a hacker who sent a computer virus into the IT system which has reproduced and caused havoc with the system, causing lots of folk to turn up only to be turned away and sent elsewhere. Robin plays windows and algorithms in a bid to make sense of this sci-fi frightener.

Nothing sci-fi about the boys in blue putting the boot into assorted front doors in pursuit of the alleged baddies who brought opprobrium down upon the splendour of the Notting Hill Carnival. Bill's chill "knock on the door" at dawn was pretty dramatic but may help make London a safer place; so it was an alarm call and a strong cup of coffee for Glen this AM and I mean AM.

Mystery surrounds the plight of one of nature's loveliest - only the Queen and the Duke of Norfolk (Catholic, Arundel Castle, Katherine Howard, wife of Henry VIII and all that) can own them and one has been impaled upon a stake. I am writing about a stunning young swan. Our first thought was some cruel cretin had been at work but the RSCPA assure us it was an act of self-harming. Marcus dons his white tights and tutu to investigate tales of recovery.

There are more cell-phones in the UK than there are people. The only other item that can make that claim, I gather, is the number of copies of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" albums. So you must have some, or several, about your home, person or down the back of your sofa. How we can use them to help missing people will be revealed on tonight's show. Don't hang up on me, now: you will want to help.

Faye, (paint-splattered jeans, grey top and black scarf) tells us her delightful husband once shared a flat with two guys who went on to become a part of Coldplay - successful rock ensemble, one of whom has also married rather well. Faye's "beau" joined a jam, one night and, having struck the triangle I am sure with all the musicality he could muster, declared they'd never come to anything and downed another Bud'. Another case of what could have been, methinks, though less catastrophic than the inability to read notes in a certain North London Borough; but I thought it was worth mentioning.

No wonder she keeps telling us she's "stressed". But stressed or as chilled as a rock star's wife, I still love her.

Katie and I both hope you'll join us for our attempts to turn Faye's inventive genius into a programme you will enjoy - at 6.

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